I'll Follow Your Lead
Sometimes, CI work feels investigatory: we follow up a lead here, we identify a key player there, we have an accountability meeting that ends in accusations, we get a new lead and run to make a pitch that could change our entire project for the better. I'm like a gumshoe for collaboration, the governor of systems' balance. I don't think this is unusual. In fact, I think it's one of the main reasons a backbone organization becomes a real need, especially if the collaborative is complex in some way (politically, financially) or has multiple points of focus. There's just no way someone with another, usually client-focused job to do, could possibly devote oneself to searching out these pulses and, most of the time, coming up with nada.
As a staff member of a dedicated backbone, I know all too well the pros and cons of this particular element of the CI model, which I'm happy to get into in another post. But one of the most pro-nounced pros (did you see what I did there) is I am given the time and the responsibility of feeling out of the nuances of the landscape. A lot of time, this can feel like tricky volunteer management which, I'm sure, is why equity has become such a huge topic for many if not most in collective impact work. But on my best, most enjoyable days, it's discovery that I spend time on.
Though becoming more familiar and at a varied rate among the general population, collective impact is still brand new to most people. Combine that with the fact that professionals in education, social services, and even local governments are by training and by nature focused on responding to individuals and not systems' change, and any collective impact professional is going to have an uphill battle. People don't usually think at the 30,000 ft. level that designing for systems' change requires. (Also, once they get there and begin to examine the impact it could have and changes that may affect them, set yourself ready for nuclear-levels of pushback.) This is exactly why backbones become useful:
Having now been in a backbone for a fair amount of time, there are some real limitations that also must be negotiated so that I can be all of those things above. We work on a shoestring budget, we are often seen as "extra," we can often commandeer work and not realize we're doing that, our accountability structure can be very weird. The list could go on. The good news is that most of this can be mediated by good communication and clear goal setting as long as everyone gets in touch with writing goals that feel "soft." For the most part, wins in my work are in terms of relationship and capacity building which, by nature, are VERY hard to quantify and feel very weird when quantified eventually. It's a learning process.
On some days, the one, solitary thing that keeps me going is the investigative rush I get when finding a new potential partner that is the missing piece to our puzzle that day, talking someone back into the fold, and selling our case a little more each day. I live for those moments and as long as they keep popping up, I'm in it for the long haul.
As a staff member of a dedicated backbone, I know all too well the pros and cons of this particular element of the CI model, which I'm happy to get into in another post. But one of the most pro-nounced pros (did you see what I did there) is I am given the time and the responsibility of feeling out of the nuances of the landscape. A lot of time, this can feel like tricky volunteer management which, I'm sure, is why equity has become such a huge topic for many if not most in collective impact work. But on my best, most enjoyable days, it's discovery that I spend time on.
Though becoming more familiar and at a varied rate among the general population, collective impact is still brand new to most people. Combine that with the fact that professionals in education, social services, and even local governments are by training and by nature focused on responding to individuals and not systems' change, and any collective impact professional is going to have an uphill battle. People don't usually think at the 30,000 ft. level that designing for systems' change requires. (Also, once they get there and begin to examine the impact it could have and changes that may affect them, set yourself ready for nuclear-levels of pushback.) This is exactly why backbones become useful:
A dedicated backbone, staffed with insightful leaders, can discover the best ways for a collaborative to operate and coordinate the greatest opportunities for big and small wins.There's no other way to say it: backbone staff become your investigators, your referees, your idealists, your mechanics, your explorers, your therapists, agents of tough love, your greatest cheerleaders. All of these are required in some degree for a collaborative to work.
Having now been in a backbone for a fair amount of time, there are some real limitations that also must be negotiated so that I can be all of those things above. We work on a shoestring budget, we are often seen as "extra," we can often commandeer work and not realize we're doing that, our accountability structure can be very weird. The list could go on. The good news is that most of this can be mediated by good communication and clear goal setting as long as everyone gets in touch with writing goals that feel "soft." For the most part, wins in my work are in terms of relationship and capacity building which, by nature, are VERY hard to quantify and feel very weird when quantified eventually. It's a learning process.
On some days, the one, solitary thing that keeps me going is the investigative rush I get when finding a new potential partner that is the missing piece to our puzzle that day, talking someone back into the fold, and selling our case a little more each day. I live for those moments and as long as they keep popping up, I'm in it for the long haul.
Hello. We're just looking at this as a test.
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